Free to Be She and She

Laura sent me a comment on the "Twins" photo below to the effect that she thinks that home schooling helps siblings be better friends -- and want to be more alike even to the point of dressing alike -- because they aren't exposed to the, as Laura put it, "age/grade level snobbery that would keep them from enjoying dressing alike."

I think this is so true.

I thought about it all this afternoon. I think, frankly, that being free from school frees the kids from the ugly or even not-so-ugly pressure to conform to the expectations of the lowest common denominator of that age group. It leaves them free to be exactly themselves, without in any sense being shaped by the expectations of other kids.

Take music. My kids like ALL kinds of music. Ella even likes dancing to music that David and I don't care for (rap/hip-hop). Ella's favorite varies between jazz and rock, but it's classical that really sets her on her ballet toes. She says her favorite jazz is Clifford Brown. Both girls love putting on loud Latin music. They've both been singing the Broadway songs that Madison has been learning in her musical theater class ("We Go Together" from Grease and "Clouds" from Snoopy). Both girls still like much of the better kids' music (especially SteveSongs), although things with characters (like Sesame Street) have fallen by the wayside as they've aged.

But think...if they were in school, the other kids would almost certainly think it was odd that they like all kinds of music. They'd certainly feel a pressure to drop kids' music, jazz, Latin, etc. in favor of Hannah Montana.

Take the whole boy-girl thing. Even when Madison was in first grade at the early elementary classes at the Montessori school in Charlottesville, she learned this gem:

Boys go to college to get more knowledge.
Girls go to Jupiter to get more stupider.

(Also chanted, of course, in the reverse.)

And even Dario (who goes to public school), who loves the girls better than cousins, wrote on Flat Dario's T-shirt:

BOYS RULE SO MUCH.

This doesn't happen with home schoolers, so far as I've seen. There certainly may be boys and girls playing in same-sex groups because interests line up, but there isn't the odd teasing "other-ness" accorded to the other sex in the same way that there is when you send your kids to be educated by other kids.

By being educated at home, the girls get to like what they like -- and who they like -- without any kind of even vague censure. And it extends to all aspects of life. No home schooler I've ever met comments on someone else's clothes or anything like that. They know there are many more important things to talk about. Like books. Or sports. Or whatever. And almost every kid I've met is not just polite about these kinds of things, but interested in the other kid's opinions.

And the sisters? Well, they get to just LIKE each other. As they've been singing, together lately (and incessantly):

"We go together
Like rama-lama-lama, ka dingity ding de dong."